What DO you say or do when you hear Mum hitting or threatening her kids

[PeckhamRose]

Minefield alert!

I was in Forest Hill post Office and in front of me was an African mum (or sounded it) with three kids of different ages. Her kids were not misbehaving but she was threatening the older one (about 12?) with smacks two or three times for not opening his bag quick enough, or other small matter. At one point, she insisted he come to her. "Closer" she kept saying, and he looked so scared. She hit him on the side of the face away from me but he did not seem to flinch.

I know Africans have a reputation for being so strict with their kids, but these kids were not even doing anything wrong.

But Africans or not, what should we do when we witness this sort of thing? Is it right to just not be involved and let the mother think it is acceptable to talk to their kids like this and hit them? I felt helpless and so sad for these lovely kids who are being brought up with fear and negativity.

Discuss!

[Jah Lush]

You're not kidding. Definitely a minefield. Normally I'd let it go but that sounds particularly cruel and vicious. I think I would have had to have said something but I'm pretty damned sure I would have got a mouthful back and told to mind my own business but least I would have had my say.

My mother would give me a good whacking when I misbehaved but when those kids have clearly not done anything wrong as you say, and the fear in the child's eyes it sounds like they get beaten on a regular basis and that's child cruelty to me. There's not a lot you can do really.

[PeckhamRose]

Thanks Jah. I just feel we're all in this life together and we should look after and care about each other. And this makes me so upset, but I was not going to say anything to the mother but was very tempted to call the SNT.

[Jah Lush]

Umm... what's the SNT?

[Bellenden Belle]

Safer Neighbourhood Team I presume.

[dita-on-tees]

My mother was a bit of a pants down in the middle of M&S red hand print type when me and my sister were young, but it was infrequent and only when were being particularly feral (which it seems we were in M&S) It was more the shock value. plus it was the 70s. I think there is a big difference between a smacked bottom and a slap round the face. I have seen young mothers bellowing at their kids, Lewisham town centre is always the worst, and the language they use and the menace is horrible. i said something once to a woman and got a right mouthful with the threat that I also might want some. nice. so now I will do the totally ineffective and british thing of shaking my head and rolling my eyes, whilst thinking these poor sods dont stand a chance with shitty parents. Child cruelty does make me feel sick inside and kids who are bullied in the home take it into school with them.

I have absolutely no solutions other than enforced contraception until the age of 28 and then you have to pass a kindness and loveliness test.

[PeckhamRose]

Oh dita thank you for your contribution to this thread.

I just do not understand why people don't realise you can get free contraception on the NHS!

And thanks Bellenden Belle - indeed SNT means just that.

Safer Neighbourhood Team!The above is linked to the Peckham Rye team but you can go into it and check for your own.

[ratty]

I have told a woman who hit her child in the face, witnessed by me, that if I saw it again I would call the police. This was in Mark's newsagents opposite east Dulwich station. The child's crime was to ask for sweets.

She was shocked and about to have a go at me but I was so angry that she thought again and scuttled off. I think it is appropriate to challenge this but probably only did so because I was so angry.

[PeckhamRose]

Good call.

Thanks for contributing to this. I shall think about that in the future.

I feel so for the kids, they may get it worse when they get home.

[binary_star]

I didn't realise Africans had a 'reputation' for being strict with their kids, but reputation aside, if I'm honest, I'm not sure what I would do. I'd like to think I'd challenge the behaviour, but it's probably one of those situations that you're never sure of how you'd react until it occured.

Btw, thanks for posting the SNT link PR, form there I found out when my local SNT meetings take place. I had asked James Barber about this separately but didn't get a clear response...and now I know (in the middle of the bloody day!)

[first mate]

Hitting/slapping a child on the face is just plain nasty, abusive and wrong. I'm not being PC about this I just think that the face is so sensitive.... no wonder that child had fear in his eyes. Had it been the rump I might not have approved but it does not feel so vicious as an action. I think culture, religion etc.. is irrelevant, that kind of behaviour is abusive and I think I might have said something.

[The Minkey]

My next door neighbour is very handy with her kids, I don't much enjoy living next to them for a few reasons, not least hearing her whack her boy round the head really hard one time and listening to him sobbing, 'my eye, Mum, my eye!'. I'm not against smacking per se as a tactic of last resort, but hitting a kid round the head is just wrong.

[The Minkey]

I didn't say anything because I have to live next door to them which isn't always easy regardless of the crude parenting style. It makes me feel cowardly but I'm not big or brave enough to go taking her on. On the other hand, she does clearly love her kids and I imagine she's parenting the way she was parented, possibly better for all I know. I don't for one minute think her childhood was an easy one.

[PeckhamRose]

I know that some Ghanians in London send their children back home to boarding schools where they are exposed to severe punishments as they consider London schools too soft. Africans living near me - the kids have been known to ask to hide near us in case their parents see them and "they'd beat me about my head".

I shall call SNT in future and have the number onmy mobile (whoever is doing the violent act). Thanks everyone.

[The Minkey]

I had to move to get away from my last set of neighbours who just happened to be Ghanaian. One time their boy ran a key along someone's car and his sister danced up and down alongside him saying, 'ooh, you're going to get the big stick!'. Had I seen or heard him getting beaten with one, I would definitely have reported them. As it was, I frequently had to run a gauntlet of 30/40 people to go ask them to turn their music down but I was a lot younger then and in much better health. Unlike my current neighbours, I didn't hear much fun from their house apart from the whooping of adults over the music.

[hilili]

I've never witnessed anything like this but I don't think I could keep quiet- I think my instinct would be to belittle the bully as she tried to belittle her child - nasty woman - there is no need to treat another human that way. Makes me mad!!

[giggirl]

I would keep quiet and do nothing and it would eat me up for the next few days and I would end up being unable to sleep and crying for the child and for myself for being so inadequate. Those of you who are more effective have my admiration.

[jumpinjackflash]

The Minkey Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I had to move to get away from my last set of

> neighbours who just happened to be Ghanaian. One

> time their boy ran a key along someone's car and

> his sister danced up and down alongside him

> saying, 'ooh, you're going to get the big stick!'.

>

If I had a son and had caught him damaging someone's car he would have got more than a 'big stick' let me tell you.

I'm not justifying the mother's (mentioned in the first post) action at all..she sounds dreadful, but you have to accept that in some cultures dishing out punishment(whether warranted or not) or even teaching discipline can be very harsh. My mum used to keep a leather slipper aside for whenever I got a bit lippy and my cousins would get the belt once in a while! Looking back it kept us all out of trouble. However, to live in constant fear of your parents when you're basically a good kid and being hit in the face is totally wrong.

[Guest]

Similar to response to JJF. If my neighbour thumped his son for keying a car, I'd congratulate him.

[KidKruger]

In the Post Office it may have been the Mother or maybe a friend of the family or child minder (perhaps not of the 'registered' kind though !).

I would have said something to the woman I'm afraid, even if itmeant recieving abuse or a threat. The child deserves to know other people around don't think it's OK and the hitter deserves a reminder of the same and that they're abusing their position as an adult.

Hitting of a child in public adds to their humiliation.

Tracy Chapman wrote a song abouthearing a woman being beaten next door, night after night, week after week, doing nothing then seeing the ambulance come to take away the broken body. I always think of that scenario because as someone above said it's sort of a shared responsibility, we have no right to do nothing then complain when the worst happens.

[*Bob*]

Ms B Wrote:

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> Similar to response to JJF. If my neighbour

> thumped his son for keying a car, I'd congratulate

> him.

I don't remember me or my brother, or any of our friends - keying any cars when we were young. I suppose our parents must have brought us up properly in the first place, or something stupid and old-fashioned like that.

Still - congratulations to these neighbours for crap parenting in the first place, and then congratulations for them needing to dish-out a sound beating as a result of their own failings as parents - and congratulations to you for congratulating them. Cigars all round.

[legalbeagle]

Ms B Wrote:

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> Similar to response to JJF. If my neighbour

> thumped his son for keying a car, I'd congratulate

> him.

It's difficult to know where to start with this. "Thumping" children is inexcusable, no matter what they've done. As a general rule you teach them to respond to difficult situations with violence, aggression, and temper, and you also teach them not to get caught. You don't correct their behaviour or change anything in the long term. Unless of course you ""thump" them so regularly that they are obedient out of fear only, in which case you have produced an obedient but damaged adult, with all the probelms that brings if they have their own kids. There are more ways to instil good discipline than the fear of THAT LEVEL of physical violence.

Capitals used in an attempt to stave of "bleeding heart liberal" and "there's nothing wrong with a smack on the back on the legs" type torrent that will probably come my way. I'm not talking about smacking. I'm talking about a grown adult CONGRATULATING someone for THUMPING a child.

[The Minkey]

Yes, the kid was bang out of order but using a big stick on a child is surely not an acceptable form of discipline. A smacking from either of that pair would have been more than enough to drive the point home, they weren't exactly puny - I dread to think of the damage potential if either of them had set about an adult with a length of wood, let alone an eight year old.

[Nero]

Oh, come on! If I saw a man or woman beating a child about the head or neck in a public place for some minor misdemeanour, I would tear a strip off them. Stop cowering behind hoary claptrap like 'different cultural values' and do the right thing!

[Annette Curtain]

If culturally you've had your head filled with this kind of s*it, then it's hardly suprising.

Is it ?

Conclusion. Big Church = Big stick.

http://www.creationists.org/pics7/0other/dowelrod.JPG

Nette(!)